Summer associates get good odds at US law firms

October 1, 2012
American Lawyer magazine has reported an increase in the number of law students who spent their summers working at major law firms between 2011 and 2012, finding that nearly all of those students were offered full-time employment.

The findings come from two recent American Lawyer surveys: the magazine's Summer Hiring Survey and an informal Am Law Daily poll. 21 firms responded to surveys, and 1,314 of the 1,361 of their summer associates, or 96.5 percent, received job offers.

The survey further shows that respondent firms are hiring summer associates in greater numbers: the 92 responding firms that provided data for the past two years hired 15.5 percent more summer associates in 2012 than they did in 2011, with the average class size among those firms growing to 44.